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APRIL 2021 19 BY VINCENT BRIEDIS W hen the horn sounded on the 2017 men's lacrosse season, UVA head coach Lars Tiffany just finished his first year in Charlot- tesville in what started out to be a promising campaign. However, a 3-5 mark over the last eight games of the season kept the 8-7 Cavaliers out of the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row. Tiffany and his staff wanted a way to bring his team together and "Cultural Thurs- day" was founded in the form of a book club. The out-of-the-box, team-building exercise features six books that the team rotates through each semester. Legacy by James Kerr, Gates Of Fire by Steven Pressfield, The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown, The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday, I Hope You Will Be Very Happy by Dom Starsia and How Champions Think by Dr. Bob Rotella are the current collections of books that Tiffany pulls from. Tiffany assigns a book to be read each summer and each holiday break between semesters. Then during the semester, at the start of a Thursday practice, the team breaks into "families," each comprising a first-, second-, third- and fourth-year student- athlete. Each family discusses the book to- gether, and then each family reports in a full team setting what resonated and what they found valuable. "For me, Legacy, a story about leadership based on New Zealand's All Blacks rugby team, was always the book that kicked off our creation of a new and truly united team," Tiffany said. "Our first year here as a staff, as that 2017 season wrapped up, we recog- nized that we needed to do something to bring the men together. "We needed to help them reduce the poor decision making with social events, to reduce the interference it brought to the field and the selfishness. I will always think about Legacy and the fall of 2017 as when we really put our impression on this program." The first semester of "Cultural Thurs- days" resonated so much with one of the captains, Scott Hooper, that he bought 50 copies of Gates Of Fire with his own money so the team could study it during the spring of 2018. The book recounts the ancient Greek Battle of Thermopylae through one of its only three survivors. In the midst of a pandemic, though, Tif- fany has found he has to navigate "Cultural Thursdays" a little different, so it doesn't become like just another Zoom class the team has during the week. "I wanted our 'Cultural Thursday' to be more personal," Tiffany said. "We started doing something a little different, an idea that Army head coach Joe Alberici gave me. We call it Triple-H where the team shares who their hero is, a hardship they have in- curred and a highlight. "It has been really cool to see the guys talk for a couple of minutes each, and it's really resonated. I felt that during this time where we don't get a lot of interpersonal connections or get to be together, we're at BOOK CLUB Men's Lacrosse Head Coach Lars Tiffany's 'Cultural Thursdays' Create A Foundation For His Program's Success "Cultural Thursdays" currently feature six books that the men's lacrosse program rotates through each semester: Legacy by James K err, Gates Of Fire by Steven Pressfield, The Boys In The Boat by Daniel James Brown, The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday, I Hope You Will Be Very Happy by Dom Starsia and How Champions Think by Dr. Bob Rotella. PHOTO BY MATT RILEY/COURTESY UVA ATHLETICS